


The REMASTER of Shinji and Warhammer40k

by Charles Bhepin (Bluepencil)



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Warhammer 40.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 09:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4783106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluepencil/pseuds/Charles%20Bhepin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Also, now an illustrated work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: NGE is owned by Gainax, Warhammer4000 is owned by Gaming Workshop, and assorted other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

 

 

****

**SHINJI AND WARHAMMER40K**

 by Charles Bhepin

  
(originally posted 2007)

 

This story can also be found on the[ Sufficient Velocity forums](https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-remaster-of-shinji-and-warhammer40k.20642/) for beta-ing.


	2. Pilot: A Child of Ever Summer part 1 of 2

**PROLOGUE - 01**

=][=

September 9th, in the year 2000, was the day when everything changed. It was the event called Second Impact.

The event called First Impact was the theorized massive planetoidal collision 4 billion years ago. Second Impact was the arrival of a meteorite too small to detect, but traveling at nearly ninety percent the speed of light, slamming into Antarctica with the force of eighteen billion megatons of TNT. So said the history books.  
  
Extreme earthquakes and massive tidal waves spread out from the impact point. Another billion would die in the global wars and chaos that followed. A mere two days after Second Impact, the tensions between Pakistan and India went hot – nuclear hot. Seven days after a disaster, for mysterious reasons, a nuclear bomb was detonated in the center of Tokyo, killing half a million people.  
  
Refugees and violence raced around the world, as the world itself reeled in anguish. Uncountable plant and animal species were rendered extinct. Second Impact reshaped the world and billions of souls died screaming into the night. They were the lucky ones. Those left behind had to endure until February 14, 2001 and the Valentin*e Treaty marking the formal end of the fighting. By this point, human population was halved.  
  
In those five months, the worst animal impulses of mankind dominated. In those five months, heroes were those who struggled and died to keep civilization intact. In those apocalyptic five months, the face of the world was reshaped, and humanity was purged of its delusion of its mastery over its gentle planet.  
  
Those that remained had to struggle in the corpse of their proudest era.  
  
Japan, being an island nation, was among the worst affected. The seas had risen dramatically, drowning their interlocking coastal metropolises. The children who had grown immediately following Impact had to live in a world vastly reduced, vastly sapped of its vibrant exuberance. The age before them could only be told in a new myth as the apex of humanity.  
  
The turn of the century was a time of reckless motion that they might never achieve again, a final decade brimming with ideas, many of which sank under the sea or set aside in the call for survival. A Golden Age stolen.  
  
For the truth of Second Impact was this: mankind was brought low by its own hubris. It was an attempt to achieve godhood, and for that all humanity was cast down. The world died as a mere side-effect of the death-throes of an uncovered God. Information around Second Impact was inaccurate and at times unrealistic for a good reason. Antarctica was pulverized in its entirety, but the detonation did not act in any way like a nuclear explosion.  
  
The men and women who performed this enterprising blasphemy still lived, and they yearned for the day they could try again. One of these men was named Gendo Ikari (nee Rokubungi), the widower of the brilliant geneticist Yui Ikari.  
  
Three years after Impact, he lost that which he treasured the most, and nothing in heaven or hell nor all the works of man could not be sacrificed in the goal of bringing her back.

 =][=

  
But also in this pallid age, in Japan still trying to pick itself up nine years after the event, in the hills of Sendai, lived a boy named Shinji Ikari.  
  
The hills were now the new coastlines. He lived there with his uncle and aunt, and though his needs were cared for there was an emotional distance between all who lived inside that house. They had lost their own son in the Impact, and taking care of Rokubungki’s child could not truly fill that emotional void.  
  
In a house without smiles, Shinji only learned to be silent and obedient, further deepening the dissimilarity between him and the child they once had, a boy full of laughter and easy tears.  
  
He did not expect much from his guardians. As he never asked for anything, they took it as a sign he was content. That it was how he liked things. He as a consequence grew without lavish attention, without toys, without the competitive bonds of playmates. He watched silently as the others played, bragged and then combined their amusements. Apathy was his proof against envy.  
  
This was before he discovered the cello, the solitary music, and the gentle stirrings of the classicals. Before that lonesome hobby, he had the sea. He would walk back then at the edges of bitten cliffs and the new worn beaches, watching the unceasing motion of the tides beating powerfully against rock. Lying there, staring up at the sky, letting the sounds fill him and consume him - he felt as if a part of something greater. It reminded him that man was small, a child smaller still, and that the painful emotion of being subtly unloved was as nothing at all.  
  
He was too shy to make friends normally. The other children played by competing, boasting and trying to prove themselves the better. They wanted attention, which was the very thing that stung. The thing he wanted most of all, he was afraid of receiving it.  
  
The latter half of the twentieth century was a glut of entertainment. It all but vanished as studios sank under the waves and efforts were funneled into the practical. That left a somber land and a somber people. Shinji grew up without frivolous TV shows, without the spread of manga or the glorious wrath of Godzilla. The few books around the house and at school were simple texts, intended mainly to be instructional than entertaining. Without the obvious distractions, the boy learned to enjoy the sounds of solitude.  
  
He would lie down with his head half-sunken into the shoreline, the waves beating against the top of his head and around his ears. He was cold, and wet, and his brain was chill to the point of nirvana.  
  
One day, as he lay there, as if daring the sea to make that surge and swallow him up, it all changed.  
  
For the sea did surge, and the waves did flow over him, and he gasped and flailed and something black and painfully solid rose along with the tides to clonk him upside down the head. It pushed him forward, and dragged him back out with the rolling waves.  
  
The boy jerked back up to his feet, coughing and spitting. His nostrils burned from accidentally inhaled seawater.  
  
Shinji rubbed at his head, and he thought it pitiful that for those brief moments he thought he was going to die it was nonetheless the most exciting thing to ever happen to him. His heart was still pounding, his skin cold and over-sensitive. He felt so thoroughly alive. He shivered, let out a strangled little laugh.  
  
The waves seemed to push the black object further to him, trying to get him to accept it. Shinji decided to haul what turned out to be a big black suitcase away from the sea.  
  
It was made of tough plastic, and sealed shut with protective hard plaster lining at the seams. Waterproof and shock-resistant, it looked temptingly valuable. He was alone there, as he preferred. It wasn’t that far from his house, but in the aftermath of Second Impact many properties still remained abandoned. Shinji gave in to curiosity and decided to open it.  
  
In any other point in time he would have sheepishly brought it over to a person in any authority, even someone slightly older. Right then however, he was still filled with his first shot of adrenalin and his head throbbed enough to interfere with common sense. He brought it over to a slab of flat rock, and broke the seals. The suitcase lock had only three digits, and was easy enough to crack.  
  
Inside… were books. Big, colorful books, and utterly unlike anything he had ever seen before. Packed to the side were little figurines in dynamic poses and painted in exquisite detail. Skulls, monstrous figures, and screaming faces adorned the contents in many places, but for some reason it hardly frightened him; he who was nervous of little mice. He picked one book up and hesitantly ran a small palm over its glossy cover. Its title was adorned with a strange double-headed eagle.  
  
He didn’t recognize any of the letters, being that English had yet to be taught to his grade level… but the sight was burned into his mind. He had to know what it said.  
  
He opened the book, the pages crackling with newness. Illustrations, paragraphs, numbers, all there and incompressible. It was beyond his meager knowledge and life experiences. The pictures matched the figurines, though, scenes of conflict and deaths on a massive scale were clear enough to understand.  
  
He did not recognize anything, but knew enough that he held in his hands something **_epic_**.  
  
For the first time in his life Shinji learnt NEED. He needed it. He needed to know what it meant. It was valuable? Someone maybe lost his prized collection? Screw that noise. He would never let it go, never give up this discovery. For a time, he considered just burying it as a treasure all his own, but there was the risk of someone finding and taking it.  
  
Slowly, furtively, he pulled the suitcase back to the house. He felt for the first time utter fear. Every shadow was a thief. Every whisper of the wind a condemnation for his sin. Up, up, difficult as it was, he wrestled the heavy suitcase over stairs and into his room.

 

=][=

  
The boy knew he could not hide it forever. There wasn’t any place in his room to stash the suitcase, and better yet if he could examine its contents openly.  
  
“S-so… I found this. Can I keep it?”  
  
“What is this…? Shinji, this is too much. Did you steal this?” his aunt asked.  
  
For the first time he felt anger. He found it by the beach, he insisted, and it was his by right! The seaweed and small cockle-shells clinging to the case convinced them. It looked like it had floated for years through the bloated Pacific.  
  
When he asked them to explain the contents, they said it was perhaps too grown-up for him. “This… this **means** something.” he replied, suddenly too serious, his face such a focused mask that reminded them all too much of Gendo Rokubungi. Shinji pointed to the title of a book. He took out one of the figurines, and matched it to the frowning helmet on the cover. “I don’t know but it’s this. What does it say? What is it?”  
  
His uncle sighed. His wife disapproved of the blatantly horrendous contents of the suitcase. “It says… Warhammer 40,000. Codex Space Marines.” Inside he was bubbling. He saw the hope in Shinji’s eyes and shared it. It was in its own way a true treasure. He could appreciate the implied rarity of this set, only the late twentieth century could produce something so shameless.  
  
It was something for the men in that house to share, his son would have enjoyed it as much as Shinji would… in that respect he would allow it. He found the contents as damn cool as Shinji did.  
  
_‘Mine!’_ he was shouting inside. He did not dare look at his wife. ‘ _Man rights! Man rights! We are never too old for toys!’_  
  
“What’s that…?” Shinji asked. _‘That wasn’t helpful at all!’_  
  
“It’s in English, Shinji-kun. You need to know it to really see what this is all about.”  
  
The boy nodded. “Then I will learn this… Ing…-lesh? I want to learn it, uncle!”  
  
The magic word was **_want_**. His guardians saw the same self-determination apparent in his father. And if there was something their creepy brother-in-law Gendo could do, it is to be stubborn as anything. He was a very hard man to say ‘no’ to… not because he was charismatically convincing, but because he had the bland yet tightly-wound energy of a Yakuza hitman.  
  
The boy, young as he was, was ready to give himself over to something separate from himself. If they gave away the suitcase, literally anything might happen. Gendo was unpredictable in such a manner, and his son, so easily following in his steps… it was likewise easier to just tolerate his odd dreams than to give him reason to become even more morose or unstable.  
  
Besides, his uncle really wanted to play with that Dreadnought over there. “I’ll help you learn it, Shinji.” He smiled. “It’s okay.” he said aside to his still frowning wife. “It’s… educational…”

 

 

=][=

 

 

  
  
=][=

  
The universe of Warhammer 40,000 was already heady stuff for a grownup, and mind-warping to a little boy. Shinji was determined to puzzle it out. Not only was it his first exposure to creative entertainment, but of science fiction as well. His uncle was a high-school teacher, and saw in this enthusiasm a good way to grant context to learning. Of course, the inherent violence and dystopia of the 40th millennium was due some careful explanation, but it was also a good chance to discuss history and philosophy.  
  
His uncle grew hooked as well and soon put the books on prized display over at his desk. Armed with dictionaries the two slowly figured out the mechanics of the game.  
  
Kouta Ikari perhaps gained more out of the game than the boy, because packed into that suitcase was a hard disk. Inside was an even bigger collection of images and source material, most importantly novels and scanned comics. The data took up only half of available drive capacity, so he enjoyed an extra 20 GigaBytes of disk space.  
  
He had to explain certain aspects of the setting beyond what the printed sourcebooks said – such as how the Emperor did not originally intend to be worshipped as a god, that the Eldar gods fought a bitter War in Heaven and birthed a Chaos God out of their own uncontrolled hedonism, and that the Orks were rewarded by their own biology for being successful. The boy looked up with eyes filled with wonder at his storytelling.  
  
It was a dark and bleak universe, broken only by moments of dark humor, but such a thing resonated with a Post-Impact survivor.  
  
Humanity in the world of Warhammer 40,000 was fallen from the heights it could barely even comprehend, clinging to maintain the light of civilization amidst myriad horrors that sought to put it out forever. The Imperium of Man, in its millions of worlds, besieged on all fronts, vigorous and mighty and always at the point of catastrophe. For ten thousand years, they have endured by casting aside weakness and hesitation.  
  
For the Emperor. For humanity. Nothing exemplifies this ethos like the Adeptus Astartes,  
  
Astartes were knights, who in turn were much like samurai, who lived only to serve their lord. But where samurai were supposed to be zen in fearless acceptance of death, the Emperor’s Space Marines were immortal demigods who defied death. Such an existence that left no room for the endless mortal fears and desires, the little pains of growing older, the anxiety of being employed, the emotional fatigue of dealing with family and co-workers – none of that, but to be forged in pure unrelenting purpose – it was awesome and yet pitiful in its own way.  
  
He relished the dichotomy of everything in the books. Just enough to make you envy such an existence, just enough horror to repulse and make you feel better about your own life on this wounded but placid Earth.  
  
Both Shinji and his uncle very quickly decided that **Rogue Trader Era** was **Best Era**. Orkish _kultur,_ bickering Eldar, solemn space monk Space Marines and heroic Imperial Guard – for Shinji, theirs were the blessed existence. It was the vision of high adventure!  
  
Everything else he learned about became linked to Warhammer somehow. His childish daydreams involved hunting for xenos, Titans lurking in the bushes, the sky above seemingly higher and bluer with the knowledge that beyond there might be worlds like the stories.  
  
Laughter rang in that house, for the first time in many years.

 

 

=][=

  
“Filthy xeno! You will be cleansed from this planet!” the middle-aged man screamed. “In the name of the Emperor!”  
  
“Waaaagh!” retorted Shinji, pushing a tray full of orkish figures and paper cut-outs to stand for missing pieces. It had gotten to the point that the two would hardly talk to each other anymore except in English. In a martial combative style at that. It had become routine.  
  
Kouta’s wife hated it. Haruka hated the ugly, warlike setting. She hated the way they laid claim to the kitchen and sections of the living room as battlefield. Most of all she hated how her husband was treating the boy as a replacement for her son. He was forgetting just who it was that he owed his love to, just how much he cried.  
  
Their child died at four years of age, from something as simple and preventable as an infection… if only it happened at any time other than the turmoil after Impact. In the refugee camps, cold and stinking and shoulder-to-shoulder with people, theirs was just one more tragedy among too many.  
  
She was not ready to put aside the suffering of those hungry, terrifying days. The pain, it was proof, that her son existed. That he laughed, and he ran, and he meant everything to his parents. She watched them play on top of a table, and in a flicker of a shadow would remember her son running under the table.  
  
She would see Shinji sitting by the figurines placed on the windowsill, the boy so intent on the miniatures as if demanding _‘Tell me your secrets’_. Then, in the time it takes to blink, in his place her son was sitting there with his nose pressed to the window glass, looking forlorn because it’s raining outside. And then, nothing again but an eerily quiet child.  
  
Kazuki Ikari existed, but day by day the proof decayed.  
  
She hated how as if his memory was being cast aside by his own father, that a boy who did not love them back was stealing his place, and that she was being left behind, ignored in their rapid exchanges in a language she was not really all that familiar with.  
  
“You’re Japanese!” she screeched. “At least speak that in this house!” It was as if they were making fun of her ignorance.

 

 

=][=

  
One day, while they were away, she took and stuffed all the figurines into a sack. Space Marine and Land Raider, Ork mobs by the whole, Eldar so spindly and fragile, and the demonic Chaos with extra vehemence - into the bag, out the door. She had to get it all out of the house, she had to take back her life.  
  
Shinji arrived, smiling and polite. Almost instantly he noticed their absence. He looked frantically about, making noises, leaving messes.  
  
She snapped at him, told him to do his homework. With such accusing eyes, he looked at her, and he ran upstairs to get it all done.  
  
All too soon he was back down, gasping for breath. He stood there clutching his notebooks and waiting, as she sat by the table and cradled her face in her hands. Minutes inched by, in silence, perhaps she hoped he would go away. Shinji’s little body shook, but he stood there, as long as it would take. He did not dare to poke her and see if she was asleep.  
  
“It’s gone, damn it! GONE! They’re trash! Worthless, useless, trash!” she screamed at him suddenly. “I THREW IT ALL AWAY! YOU’LL NEVER GET THEM AGAIN!”  
  
Shinji let out such a howl and dropped his notebooks, that she feared he might actually attack her. Instead, he cried. He had thought as much. “WHY?!” was all he said, between whining sobs. He had stood there long enough that his legs were numb, locked into place. He wiped his face on the sleeves of his shirt, staining it with yellowish snot.  
  
“Stop that!” his aunt shouted. “I have to wash that…!”  
  
Shinji didn’t care. He felt malice for the first time. But more than that, the inside of his nose was itchy and his belly clenched in the grip of such strong emotions. Uncontrolled hiccups resulted. He blew his nose but it just came out in dribbles. He turned back to her, eyes red and sniffling… wetness down his cheeks and out his nose. “Why…?!” he asked again.  
  
_“I was happy and was harming nobody…”_ he wanted to wail. _‘Why are you so mean?! What did I do to you?!’_ Instead he could just scream out again and again “WHY?!” while he tried to plug up his nose with his shirt sleeves.  
  
“STOP THAT!” Haruka screamed again. She launched off her chair and made as if to hit him. He shrank back, though still rooted to the spot. The aunt grimaced and pulled back her hands… she clutched them over her laboring chest, constricting emotions gripping her as well. She sniffled a bit as well, her eyes starting to tear up. The boy’s howling never stopped.  
  
She was sure the neighbors, though far enough away, could hear his crying. “Stop it…” she whispered. “Behave.”  
  
“I’m sorry…”  
  
“You’re not my son…” she whispered. “I can’t… it’s not that easy to forgive.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” said Shinji. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Stop it! No!” She placed her palms over hear ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She considered herself a good person. All she wanted was some peace in her house! “Don’t say that!”  
  
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I’ll try to be a good boy.” He coughed as air went down the wrong pipe. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not your son. I won’t play with uncle anymore. I’ll help out more with the chores.” Gendo’s son wanted to kneel, but his knees were still locked. He wanted to run away. It was so painful! Why did he have to feel that way? It was better when there was nothing in life he actually liked!  
  
“I’m sorry!” he shouted now. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”  
  
“Stop.”  
  
“I’M SORRY! PLEASE!”  
  
She threw herself at him, her eyes glittering madly, and the boy screamed.  
  
However, his aunt was just embracing him. She was crying into his shoulder.  
  
“No, _I’m_ sorry.” she sobbed out as well. _‘My hair is now full of snot’_ , a part of her mind noted. Being a mother was sometimes such a disgusting, difficult job. Sometimes that what makes it so worthwhile, to be so needed. “I’m sorry, Shinji…”  
  
She pulled away at wiped his tears with her apron. She had served the domesticated wife for too long, she even wore her hair in the prim manner so demanded by the role. Every day without her son made it all meaningless, but still did so in a ritual to forget, to immerse herself in being needed that it only heightened her isolation.  
  
She took a deep breath and looked back in those past seven years of trying to find someone to blame to the senseless misery of Impact.  
  
“It… is… my fault… I didn’t understand. I was selfish, too.” she said. She all but collapsed, and Shinji had to support her with his tiny arms. “My son is dead! I can’t… every day, I can almost hear his voice. _Kaa-san_ , play with me! _Kaa-san_ , where’s father? Mother, look at me!”  
  
Her hair came undone, she touched her forehead to his. Her bloodshot eyes met his. “You are drowning out his voice! When you laugh, it’s like he can’t be here anymore. It’s like he was never here. Your room was his room. Your clothes were his clothes… you look so much like your mother, my sister, and me, it hurts! It hurts me! I can’t let you be my son. I can’t abandon him…! I have to prove he once was!”  
  
Neither were in any rational state of mind.  
  
“I’m sorry…” Shinji said again.  
  
“No!”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Stop saying that!”  
  
“But I am!” he shouted. “I never wanted this! You’re not my mother. My mother is DEAD! My father doesn’t want me! And I do nothing except cause everybody pain…!”  
  
“Shinji…”  
  
“All I had was a place where I wasn’t myself. It wasn’t real… it made me happy because it wasn’t real. I hate my life! I hate it! I hate this world!” He was grimacing so much veins in his neck were bulging out. “But over there, without hate you can’t live. They’re heroes out there. I want to be a hero. I want to die, that I did something that was worth everything before it… and it’s not even real!”  
  
He sniffled some more. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”  
  
His aunt drew back, staring at him in mute horror. Children were prone to the dramatic, and in their ignorance could be the cruelest creatures. They were also in their way heartrendingly sincere. A child should not be entertaining such thoughts. She could blame part of that on his violent little hobby… but most of it, in a world and a family that had no affection to spare.  
  
“…humanitas…” he mumbled. “For humanity. It was so big. It was so awesome. It was everything this stupid stupid world should have been…” He looked up, seemingly through her, his young eyes dark and piercing. “I want never having to be alone with the brotherhood of the Space Marine. I want to have a God-Emperor to trust with all my soul. I want the orks and their Waaagh and their joy in being alive, and the Eldar who are all so wise where I’m not. Even the Chaos and their demons made it all seem so worthwhile.  
  
Everything made sense. Everything had a purpose…”  
  
Shinji had actually started to get better grades from his obsession with the box, his drive to learn English and understand the concepts in science fiction made elementary school… well, elementary.  
  
Much like his father, he had let himself become absorbed by something greater than himself. The main difference was the he had swallowed a lie rather than building an edifice of it to entrap others.  
  
“I’m not your son…” he continued. He clenched his fists and quivered in place. “What am I, really?”  
  
“Shinji… I never realized it was…”  
  
“Who is Shinji?! Someone please tell me! What am I supposed to be?” he asked in all desperation.  
  
His aunt slowly shook her head. “You’re just a child. Shinji… you shouldn’t be thinking those things. You can be whatever you want to be, it’s still all so far away for you…”  
  
“Whatever else other than your son…” he finished. “I’m sorry. I’m not him. I can’t ever be him. I’m sorry you thought I was trying…” he trailed off into silence.  
  
Crickets chirped outside, the room was stained red.  
  
She placed her hands on his shoulder, in a posture to push him away and sighed. “No, you can never replace my son…”  
  
Instead, she pulled and crushed him into a hug. “But I think I can love you anyway…”  
  
The boy began to cry again. He was, after all, just ten years old.  
  
“Waah… Auntie….”  
  
“Shinji…”  
  
In the growing darkness they remained, true family at last.  
  
“Librarian!”  
  
She blinked. That was one of the few English words she knew. What an odd thing to yell out in such a dramatic moment. Shinji struggled to get out of her embrace and she let him loose.  
  
The boy tried to walk and nearly toppled over to smash his head on the table edge, Luckily he was fast enough push away with his hands. Haruka was left wide-eyed and stunned by her inaction. _‘Damn it, Shinji, you could have killed yourself!’_ She knew for sure for that, the boy was certainty **not** sorry. He had other more important concerns.  
  
Shinji weaved past the dining table and into the kitchen. He reached into the shadows behind a shelf and brought out a figurine, a bald man, scowling, in thick stubby blue armor. “Hu-waaa.” the boy gasped out. “I found it! Master Librarian of the Ultramarines!” He looked wildly around the kitchen. He pointed to another dark area. “Is that… is that, hey!” He rushed to over the refrigerator and pulled out a “Lord Dreadnought!” and “Wah! Captain Tankbusta! You were fighting again!”  
  
Well, he was **ten**.  
  
He turned around and gave her such a biiig, happy smile, so bright and honest. “That was a dirty trick you pulled, auntie.” He wanted to hug her again, but his arms were rather already full. “But I’m glad we had this talk.”  
  
His aunt simply sat there, her eyes glazed, her hair frazzled. She managed to get herself to moving just in time to clean up after herself, and present a welcoming face to her husband. Meanwhile, Shinji went around finding Warhammer 40k figurines all over the place. He was having fun in the odd variation of hide and seek. It made him love, for yes he finally identified that feeling, his aunt all the more.  
  
They never mentioned again what happened then. They got along just fine, and it was from her that Shinji learn most of his cooking skills. This was their time, equal and as important to the time at wargaming and listening to the stories that Kouta Ikari allowed his nephew.  
  
She never interfered again in the boys (in age and at heart) at play, and went deliberately out of her way to allow them their time for bonding. The miniatures were always clean and their colors bright and fresh as the day they were painted, despite all rough handling.

  
  
=][=

 

 

  


  
=][=

  
  
In the grim dark future of the forty-first millennium, there is only war.  
  
Warhammer 40k was perhaps one of the most violent, depressing, over-the-top mindscapes ever created. It dripped with blood, with dreams juiced into unrecognizable slurry, decency and morality stretched to the breaking point. The very intro proclaimed; the worst regime imaginable. There are no innocents, only degrees of guilt.  
  
Shinji basked in it. The boy absorbed it into every corner of his being. There was nothing else at that time in Japan that could compare. The gods had abandoned man, cast him in the fires of their own stupidity. Shinji had no idea of what was behind Third Impact, whether it was punishment or mere random chance. In the grim solace of his pieces and codices, the human struggle from without paled in comparison. It made the living world, to him, bright and new and still worthy of exploration.  
  
It could be some cosmic irony, that a galaxy torn in strife and populated with the worst and best of zealotry, lusts, hatred, fear, deceit, mutation, and just senseless murder… was the one thing that could turn him… normal.  
  
Shinji was, by nature and nurture, a nervous, easily frightened child. The very first blackout he ever experienced froze him in mid-step. There was a typhoon, and the old house groaned as what sounded like a howling army of vicious toothy beasts beat themselves against it. He had suffered through tropical storms before, but it was the first time having read of the dark future and the science behind typhoons, that it struck him all at once how massive the world was and how little and powerless he was. As the wind howled in unrelenting fury, with the power out, was dark and cold and hopeless. There was nothing to do but to sit and pray, this was a foe none could fight.  
  
He was cold. Unsurprisingly, that realization was how it was _all the time_ to the grunts in Warhammer.  
  
A roar, and his window broke from a flung branch, icy air rushed knife-like in, seeming to grasp him in great claws. He screamed. His uncle went rushing in, and his candle blew out.  
  
It took him a few moments to rekindle it, every second sending the over- imaginative boy further into cold shock. He screamed and screamed until he was at the verge of passing out.  
  
Shinji’s aunt led him away while his uncle boarded up the cracked glass window. They boy felt the universe dammed away in the warmth of her arms. “Are you all right, Shin-chan? Maybe you should stay with us in our room.” The boy was not her son, and she wished that if he had lived, he would have been so well-behaved.  
  
Shinji shook his head. He didn’t want to impose even further. His guardians likewise didn’t want to force anything they wanted, even for his own good, to him.  
  
The boy stood alone in the center of his room, the candle-lights sending strange writhing shadows dancing on its wall. Outside the primordial fury still raged. He closed his eyes. Total darkness was actually less scary.  
  
He rushed to a place he was absolutely certain was safe, where he had stashed his miniatures as the family prepared for the storm. He opened the cardboard box and took out a Space Marine without his helmet. His square-jawed faced and steely gaze held a Space Marine’s unfaltering will.  
  
He took that figurine and set it on the desk near his bed. He lay down, with the Space Marine standing between him and the shadows. Its own shadow loomed large over Shinji’s bed, and it was good. When the candle died, and all was rage and darkness, Shinji was no longer afraid. He believed, in a child’s innocent and utter faith, that the Space Marine stands as a guardian against all darkness; that the light of the Emperor will yet prevail. He stands as the rock upon which the hope of humanity is built.  
  
Shinji never feared the dark again, no matter where it was. As long as his Space Marine stood there, he never had any bad dreams. Scary movies, ghost stories, among the pastime of children, had him listen there unflinching. The kids he played with called him the boy without fear. Graveyards and old buildings were amazingly gothic grounds, and in their dark stillness he felt as if welcomed.  
  
His nights would always be safe, thanks to his Space Marine.

 

 

=][=

  
Shinji was doing well in class, even going so far as to be on the honor roll. His teachers could not say anything much about him, though. He was still small, he was still so slight of stance and stature that he was easy to ignore. He always seemed to stop just short of pushing himself or getting noticed. He did what was expected of him, nothing more.  
  
That didn’t mean he wasn’t noticed. His classmates saw his improving grades, how he devoured books that he saw, specially seeking out hard English books. He was becoming a proto-nerd.  
  
He talks to himself, they saw that. He was weird. Not a cool sort of weird, no one good at class was ever cool at that age. They all felt as if Shinji was judging them somehow, intentionally setting himself apart. That was starting to piss them off.  
  
And actually, he was. Shouts of “Geppie Robo! Combine!” and the frantic rushing about beating on space monsters did not appeal to him. It was the most popular game on the playground. Giant robots and boys naturally sought each other out.  
Shinji never indulged in that play. He even refused when asked. He did not really know much about that sort of thing. He could not play along because in his dreams his robots never played.  
  
They were epic.  
  
Their stride was unstoppable, their will indomitable. They did not leap, they did not shout special attacks. They simply _were_. Their home was battlefield, and where they went they brought it along. They made it with every stride, every glance. The Giant Robo is a little boy’s god. They that walked in the vistas of his mind were the Titans of their age, Archetypical, God-slayers.  
  
Shinji liked the swings, trying to get himself soaring higher and higher, and the fall was the best part. He did not compete with the other children, nor shared any of the playground until he had to. To him, the seesaw remained unused. Seen from the outside, he was a serious boy on a serious earth, and his interests ran more towards question  
  
Those he could call ‘friends’ were all older than him, and their classes ended at different times.  
  
Shinji got another perfect score on his English test. It was a required subject in the higher grade levels, as the world’s devastation forced countries to become more and more interconnected as they shared and traded dwindling resources. His reading ability was nothing short of phenomenal, but his teacher said that his speech was not very good. Unfortunately, neither of them could actually pronounce proper English.  
  
The standard all educators sought for English was still Received Pronunciation. Where and how the boy acquired such a pure (and of course nigh incomprehensible) Cockney accent, no one knew.

 

 

=][=

  
Shinji could hear the other kids purposely talking out loud about him as a ‘suck-up’ and ‘tattle-tale’. Even though he had yet to inform on any misbehaving child about anything, somehow it was taken for granted that he was selfish and would turn on them to curry favors at the earliest opportunity. He had no idea how to deal with this form of bullying.  
  
They followed him that day, three boys skulking along the long deserted path back to Shinji’s house. They saw him again talking to himself, his face full of animation absent when at school or speaking to another person. He was that crazy creepy kid that no one wanted to play with.  
  
“Hey!” shouted the token leader of the three. “Hey, you! Wait up!”  
  
They ran up to him. They were all taller than him, and Shinji looked up at him with his customary bland gaze. “Ah, Kobayakawa.” He nodded to each. “Hello, Minato. Hello, Yohta.” They were his classmates. Inside Shinji was strangely expectant. No one had ever talked to him outside of school before.  
  
“Shut up!” shouted the tallest, and roundest, who was Kobayakawa. “Don’t talk to us like a grown-up, creepy Shinji! You like talking down to us, huh?”  
  
“Yeah! You think you’re better than us!” put in Minato, a short boy only barely bigger than Shinji. “We don’t like that.”  
  
“You’re uncool, you’re a kiss-up, and you’re useless.” piped up the third. Kouta already had to wear glasses, but for all that he looked smart his grades were only really so-so.  
  
“So why don’t ya say something?” Kobayakawa finished, his round face crumpled into a sneer. He poked at Shinji in the stomach. “Say something in English.”  
  
Shinji bent back from the outstretched index finger. “Um. What? A _-ano sa_ …”  
  
Kobayakawa poked Shinji again, harder.  
  
“In English, I said!”  
  
Shinji, bewildered, only said “Wot?”  
  
The boys made blanching sounds of frustration. Shinji began to step backwards, preparing to run off away from this insanity, when the leader noticed him keeping his left hand stuck in his pockets. Kobayakawa grabbed his arm, keeping him from bolting for it.  
  
“What’s that you have there?”  
  
Shinji tried to break free, but couldn’t. The pudgy boy tried to get at whatever was in his pockets, but Shinji had enough leverage to keep the hand forced in. “Hey, help me out!” Kobayakawa told his buddies. They managed to pry it loose.  
  
“Hey! Look at this!” said the boy. “It’s a monster!” He held up an Orkish warboss to the light. “It’s so ugly!”  
  
“That’s so cool…” breathed Yohta. He reached for it with his long, dirty fingers but Kobayakawa pulled it away. The boy scowled. “Where do you think he got it?”  
  
“Probably stole it.” Minato put in.  
  
“Yeah. That sounds right. He probably stole it.” _A pathetic loser like Shinji didn’t deserve a cool toy like this. Look at those teeth! Is that a machine gun for an arm?_ Kobayakawa’s eyes gleamed. “If he stole it, it’s okay if we have it. That’s okay, right? If we share it’s all okay.” He still planned on playing with it most, though.  
  
“I didn’t steal it!” Shinji said, his voice pitching up. “It’s mine! Give it back.”  
  
“Bii-!” Minato stuck his tongue out at him. “Make us.”  
  
“Please give it back.” Shinji begged. “I can pay you…”  
  
“Ask it in English.” Kobayakawa said haughtily. “Ask for it politely.”  
  
“Kood you pleese gib it back to mi?” he ground out. Could you please give it back to me? He stood up ramrod-straight, with his arms straight and fixed against his side. Then he bent his waist almost ninety degrees in a very deep formal boy.  
  
“Hm…” The boys laughed. “No!” Trying to treat other children like older kids and adults, that was just more proof that Shinji was the dumb one, they thought. Politeness was not the key.  
  
Slowly, ever so slowly, Shinji raised his head. “Gib back da warboss.”  
  
They laughed and began to ignore him. They waved it in the air and made growling noises.  
  
“Gibbet!” Shinji said sharply.  
  
Kobayakawa turned to see the smaller boy standing there, half-crouched and eyes all wide. He laughed again. Shinji was someone so small and so mad, and it was so easy and so much fun to tease him. They should have done this long ago, he thought. “No…” he said again, all so slow and deliberate. What could weak little Shinji do?  
  
“WwwwWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!” Shinji shouted and launched himself at them.  
  
“AAAH! Get it off! Get it off!”  
  
“He’s biting my toes! Oh god why is he biting my toes?!”  
  
“The pain! Why didn’t I know I could feel this much pain?!”  
  
Pain? What is this pain you speak of? Shinji had a busted lip, bruises all over, blood spattering his uniform, maybe even a hairline fracture in his left arm. Through it all he had this big, open-tooth, completely happy grin, total joy dancing across his face and out through his fists. The adrenalin, that he only felt once before, he realized then that he didn’t have to risk killing himself just to get that feeling again.  
  
“Get away from me!” Kobayakawa managed to push him away, sending Shinji tumbling across the dusty street. He noticed that he still had the figurine in his hand. He looked from it to the small boy slowly rising from the ground, with all the languor of a hellcat.  
  
He scowled and lifted his hand high, to throw the orkish figure down at the ground and stomp on it, winning even as he retreated. Whoever has the ability to destroy a thing has power over that thing; this any child understands instinctively. You could force someone to do anything if you threaten what they value.  
  
Shinji said something low, heartfelt, and threatening. Then, realizing they couldn’t understand it, repeated it in Japanese.  
  
“I’ll burns your houses, I’ll choppas your cars, I’ll stomps on yaz where I find yaz. I’ll smacks your townz, I’ll throws your pets, I’lls rips ya to pieces!” He got up and laughed, his jaw hanging down, in har-har-har manner. “GIMME BACK DA WARBOSS!”  
  
“You’re crazy!” Kobayakawa hoarsely shouted back.  
  
“GIBBET, HUMMIE!”  
  
“Here!” The boy threw the figurine at him. Shinji ignored it as it went sailing past his head. Blood trickled down his cheeks, and he licked at the salty red line at the edge of his mouth. If they dared to do this, they must not have the opportunity to do it again.  
  
He grinned some more and made a lunging motion at them. The boys screamed and fled.  
  
Once they were out of sight, he dropped to his knees, drained and in blinding pain. He shuffled over to where the warboss lay face-down on the concrete. A drop of his blood fell on it as he bent down to pick it up.  
  
“…good…” he whispered, his vision fading to black. “…not a scratch. I did good.” He rolled over and lay there by the road. “…I didz gud, dident I, warboss…?”  
  
He decided it was a good time to go to sleep.

 

 

=][=

  
His guardians found him there, still unconscious on the way home, and in all panic rushed him to the hospital. They screamed at the police, they screamed at the school officials, and the parents of the boys who were telling such out and out lies! After all, there were three of them! And look at how they left Shinji! How dare they try and pass themselves off as the injured party here? Shinji would never, never, attack someone. He was so shy and well-behaved, everybody said so!  
  
And so kind, they said. Shinji actually insisted that the boys not be expelled. He was so firm about it. He didn’t want anyone to be in trouble. They had to have learned their lesson.  
  
The reputation of the three boys took a nosedive. No one wanted to play with them. In the end, it took Shinji to approach them. What was there to be afraid about in talking?  
  
_Know no fear_ ; he whispered to himself.  
  
If he could not serve the Emperor or fight that grand conflict, then the least he could do was to challenge what was in front of him. Shinji no longer feared pain, therefore humiliation was the next enemy to overcome. What ork really every gave two shits about gossip, except to know who to krump? The Astartes were bound by duty, made to power, but the ork was the freest existence. One could even say, in a universe of eternal war, they were the only ones happy – the only ones for whom the war is forever won. The battle was its own reward.  
  
Other children were nothing to fear. They valued too many things. The three boys were afraid and Shinji felt responsible for their welfare. A bully would grow up to have unworkable delusions over how life worked via give-and-take, and it felt like such a waste. A productive life that adds to the might of mankind was the least the Emperor asked for each human being.  
  
_‘Deyz jas muckin’ about. Do summin bout dat, willyaz?’_  
  
If there is no war, then we must work together! The boy would not take no for an answer. That time he spent in pain and in plaster casts should mean something. He would not allow them to run away from him.  
  
Shinji stood to defend them from those who might want to bully them in turn, helped them with their homework, and invited them to play games and snack at his house. He still that weird kid in their class, but only in private did their realize how utterly insane and fearless the smallest boy in their posse could be. Even more unfair, he was trusted by the adults with the more dangerous things like knives and fire-starters and allowed to dig up the surrounding forest and beaches to play at imaginary sieges.  
  
This was the secret they only learned too late - the more responsible you show yourself to be, the more fun things you could get away with doing! Shinji was even allowed to stay up later, because he would do his homework first thing at arriving home. He could roam around freely, because he knew how not to get lost and would always return before sundown. He had a discretionary extra allowance to for projects that interested him.  
  
He taught them shortcuts for doing chores, followed them around to instill discipline in the duties given to them, and taught them the all-important skill of how to _negotiate_ with parents and older siblings.  
  
Being rewarded for doing expected chores instead of just being smacked or yelled at was a tremendous improvement. Other kids sought to have fun. Shinji, learning from the travails of the Imperial Guard and researching how armies and famous battles worked, started with _logistics_ and how _maximize_ the amount of fun or goodies he could get. The trio would be forever grateful for being given the Plan that, while obvious, they would not have come up on their own because childish rebellion against authority was its own delightful (if fleeting) feeling of power.  
  
And so half a year passed.  
  
If even Shinji could forgive the ones to put him in the hospital, then over time bullies were accepted back into the community of kids. Shinji emphatically told all in his class, that the trio were _not_ bullies, and that they deserve a second chance.  
  
And because they were his friends now, he was not so much that crazy loner boy anymore. Others could speak up for him, to say that the reason why he talked to himself was that his brain moved so fast he couldn’t just think of one thing at time. And that was fine. That was cool.  
  
Dealing with more than just the three was emotionally exhausting, but it was rewarding too to see how they all improved by helping each other. He was a good influence on them, their parents and teachers could see.  
  
Even if they didn’t call Shinji, poor little easily-embarrassed Shinji, anything but Boss. Praise was still something he had difficulty accepting. He called them ‘da boyz’ which, literally speaking, they still were.

 

  
=][=

   

 

 

=][=

  
  
Elementary school in the Post-Impact era was weird in how it taught history up to, but just short of, Second Impact. The children might ask _why_ the world was as it was, but they would have to know about it from other sources.  
  
Everyone ‘knew’ the reason behind the apocalypse, but the event was still too raw to be talked about as just a part of history. Children needed a little bit more maturity before they could discuss it in class, they need to know and appreciate first the world that was denied them, and hopefully enkindle an ambition to surpass the aborted glory of the old.  
  
Shinji Ikari’s years in middle school were about rediscovering the finest stages in humanity’s history. In another universe, this would have been when he first discovered the more cultured eras, and classical literature, and classical music. He would have found its haunting patterns more to his liking, instruments uniting and falling, relics of a much more hopeful era. It was dead music suited for a dead world. The past was gone under the seas, with all its frenzied beauty. All that lay in the future for Shinji were ruins and damaged goods.  
  
He would have known this, and was part of what would made him so depressed. He could not imagine in what possible way things could be better. How could it possibly compete to the sheer perfection of these concertos? How could it be anything but a tarnished, imperfect reflection of these long dead? It made him believe that the luckiest died in died at the most glorious portion of humanity’s history. They would remain with it, and never know how ugly and uninspired the world could be.  
  
A Shinji Ikari, who saw Titans in the shadows of buildings and walking tombs in the trees, had a much longer view. Compared to the bleakness of the forty-first millennium, this world was still so much the better. So very very much. He had faith in humanity, he was told in stories how it could rise and fall, burning anew like a phoenix from the ashes. History itself supported this. That a cathedral once gilded now lay moss-stained and ruined was nothing to be sad about. It was enough that the shape still remained. It was all the more impressive to him, that it could still be so defiant against the tide of history.  
  
It was only right and proper that things should fall into ruin. The greater the fall, the farther to new heights they could reach, climbing upon the remains of those before.  
  
TV was a rare pastime as he grew up, filled mainly with cheesy reruns and news reports. The radio was slightly more lively, but the most cheerful of music didn’t find its way into the airwaves. J-pop, mind-melting, sugar-filled and boundlessly optimistic J-pop, was another vanished piece of Japanese cultural heritage.  
  
Shinji did not need the cello to chase away the silence of his bland hours. He and his uncle played the game less and less, but they shared in its ambiance. His aunt was no longer the remote specter she was, and the house never seemed so tomblike anymore. He had been to tombs, he knew what that felt like.  
  
His hobby, unsurprisingly, was sculpture. Scratchbuilding and duplicating his miniatures into a proper army was a long-term project. There was plenty of clay to be had and there was an oven right there in the kitchen. It was a hit and miss process, and he wasn’t really all that good with it. His creations had a tendency to fall apart, for no one had told him about frameworks and bracing. He acted as if it was one big secret, and his guardians were careful not to make too much notice of it. It was certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but Shinji was embarrassed easily. They supposed he was ashamed his efforts looked very little like the miniatures.  
  
“Shinji…” his uncle said finally. “The miniatures are made of plastic, not clay. Maybe instead of sculpting them into something, you can sculpt them out of something.” He gave the boy a bar of bathing soap and a utility knife. It was the best gift he could have given, and it was not even his birthday!  
  
In a previous time, his uncle would simply have given over money as a token gift during birthdays, and thinking quite reasonably (if callously) that the boy could just go out and get whatever it was he wanted. Affection proved a much better present.  
  
Shinji did not actually improve in his sculpting efforts, but became the cleanest, sweetest smelling boy ever in his school.

 

 

=][=

  
In another place, Shinji would have saved up his money to buy a cello, being so unwilling to present himself as a bother. Here he was comfortable enough with his guardians to ask them for the money to get one, and so unwilling to lie (it displeases the Emperor!) that he told them why.  
  
Why was he so insistent now? He was of course, red-faced and stuttering as he said it.  
  
For it turns out, that there was this girl, in the school band…  
  
His guardians shared a look. So, it was about that time, eh? His uncle looked like he had swallowed a prune, and ran out of the room. Shinji supposed it was indigestion. His uncle went right out the house, and collapsed there, completely unable to contain his mirth. Shinji had always been a serious boy, but now he was… GRIMLY serious.  
  
Kouta Ikari began to roll around on the grass. Finally he gave up and just laughed at the incongruity of it. That serious face. That childish, innocent demand. The boy was unexpectedly adorable in the worst way.  
  
That left his wife to just shake her head and sigh. Haruka motioned Shinji to take a seat by the table and explain. Her comforting, serious, motherly manner coaxed the information out of him. She didn’t tease him, or try any tricks to win affection. She made a mental note to make sure her useless husband didn’t try anything too dramatic to solve this problem.  
  
Instead she just told him to make friends and find a common interest. This was the plain common-sense advice that would work nearly all of the time.  
  
“That’s why I need a cello, auntie,” Shinji replied in a similar calm and measured tone. “It’s the only position unfilled. If I own an instrument, I can get in sure.”  
  
“Ah, Shin-chan, but music isn’t so simple. If you don’t love music for itself, you’ll never succeed. And you would only dishonor yourself and the girl if you build your friendship on a lie.”  
  
Shinji nodded. He knew all about honor. It separated humanity from the foul xenos. One had to be ready to go to extraordinary lengths to defend it, even breaking a world was nothing, rather than let it fall into the chaos of falsehoods, broken oaths, sacrilege, dishonor.  
  
His uncle returned, breathless, and saw the two sitting there with their backs straight and hands folded over their laps, with faces completely set in a placid mask of politeness. All that was missing was for them to be sitting cross-legged, maybe throw a few big banners around, for it to be all out of some samurai drama. It was a serious house for serious people discussing serious things of serious importance.  
  
He gurgled something that sounded like “Bahah-!” and fled.  
  
His wife shook her head again. Useless.  
  
“Remember, Shinji, if you do go into practicing music, you need to see it through. No matter what happens, no matter how difficult it is, even if you don’t make friends. Music is something that requires dedication all through your life.”  
  
The boy’s eyes widened. She could not have phrased it any more attractively to him. “I won’t fail!” he said, puffing his chest out. “I’ll give my life if that’s what’s asked!”  
  
Haruka couldn’t resist anymore. She pinched both his cheeks and cooed. “Shinji’s a good boy!”  
  
Her husband finally managed to get back inside, saw Shinji’s grotesquely distorted face, and continued to laugh himself into uselessness.

 

 

=][=

  
Unbeknownst to him, Shinji had accidentally gathered a few admirers at school. He was not all that ‘cool’ to the boys, still something of a nerd, but to the girls he was more appealing. It was by simple matter of selection.  
  
First off, he was clean and orderly. Boys as a rule were dirty, sweaty and rude. Shinji was not merely neat, he did so on his own without seeming to treat it as anything worth a fuss and without looking a like a pretty boy. Orderliness without being told was the first sign of maturity.  
  
He was still smaller than most of his classmates, but seemed more than them somehow. His eyes were deep and unflinching, and he had a well of silent self-assurance. Whereas he was once a recluse for the lack of it, now he was set apart because he had too much of it.  
  
He was mysterious that way, independent, aloof, never boastful. They knew those he lived in were not his parents and unfortunately that was fangirl fodder.  
  
A Space Marine feared nothing, and his every step was to purpose. The books however told little about the ways of human interaction, specially towards the opposite sex. There, he was lost. If only they were more like the Adeptus Sororitas! Then there would be no problem. He never thought women would any be weaker than men.  
  
Ever since the event years ago, in which he pulled out a singular Waaagh! that he swore never to repeat, he had learned to keep his figurines at home. They were too precious to risk, despite the emotional comfort they provided. He kept their existence to himself.  
  
The boys were easy enough to deal with. There was no such thing as a stupid question for Shinji, and they appreciated how they could rely on him for advice without implying they were dumb for opening their mouths. Not their parents, or their teachers, or hell no of course not their older brothers – they could ask their boss about anything, because it was the job of the boss to know what to do about things. If he didn’t know about something, he would admit it and just have the answer ready the next time you asked.  
  
Except dealing with girls. There had to be more to it than just talking about schoolwork and what they were good at, right?  
  
In that, he was lost. He had no idea how to relate.  
  
Shinji’s little crush was a girl taller than him, and so delicate she looked like made of flowers. He felt himself hesitating every time he even gets close to her. Though he was smaller he feared as if his slightest touch could damage her somehow.  
  
“Shinji?” her opinion of him. “That little weirdo? I don’t know, he kinda creeps me out. Always just standing somewhere, staring into the strangest things. I saw him stare at those for like, almost an hour.”  
  
“Eeh, Minase-chan? So you WERE looking…” was the reply of another girl, her voice peevish.  
  
“Oh, just drop it, Acchan. Why are you asking me? I don’t care.”  
  
It was just by accident he overheard. He would swear! He was just walking along the bush. It wasn’t stalking! Fortunately he was indeed very good being unnoticeable when he needed to be. Like his father he was prone to obsessive need to gather information and plan ahead, and now he had found a new target.  
  
“What should I do?” He paced the room and asked himself. He looked at the figures at his desk and as his gaze rested on each of them could almost hear the Warboss say… _‘I dunno’,_ the Space Marine _‘…have courage’,_ and the Chaos Marine _‘… you’re… actually asking… ME?!’_  
  
He picked up the Farseer. “You’re a girl. What should I do?”  
  
_‘Shinji, I’m speaking only as a figment of your imagination,’_ her voice was almost at his head _. ‘How do you seriously expect me to solve your problems?’_  
  
“Aah!” he began to spin around. ‘ _What should I do?_ ’  
  
Learning about the school band was a fortunate turn of events.

 

 

=][=

  
  
He had his cello. He had a manual, and later his guardians would find him a teacher. In the meantime, he put the bow to rest at a string and filled his head with illusions of how he’d show her his skill in music, at how they would create music combining and completing each other…  
  
He slid it against that string and near killed his eardrums.  
  
“Aaaagh!” he screamed. It was horrible! It was impossible! She would hate him! Hate him utterly!  
  
He turned to the Space Marine at his desk. “Don’t look at me like that. All right, I’m not giving in to despair! I gave my word of honor!” And to the Chaos Marine up on the shelf. “So you can just stop celebrating right there!”  
  
Shinji could not really talk about it to his guardians, and so turned to the only companions he knew he could completely trust. An adult would be considered insane if he was hearing voices in his head, but for a child? This was a very desirable state of affairs.  
  
His old imaginary friend the Warboss was an asexual being, and could only offer advice about _‘Stop overfinkin’ and go bash somefin’_. A good dose of violence would let him forget ALL about this love foolishness. It’s so puny humie of him.  
  
“I AM a human.” he retorted.  
  
_‘Yous a bloddy ork inside-’_ The warboss seemed to shake. _‘And don’t you forge’ dit. Wez got da blood to prove it!’_  
  
The boy sighed and lay back on his bed. “She’s never going to like a creepy, violent crazy weirdo like me…”  
  
The Space Marine continued to stare. _‘This uncertainty is unworthy of you.’_ He seemed to say. _‘Remember that doubt is for the dying.’_  
  
_‘I agree!’_ an imagined voice that was harsher, even less forgiving than a Space Marine’s put in. _‘To lie to oneself is the first step into lying to others! Guard your thoughts, boy. For such thoughts lead to Chaos!’_  
  
“Oh, Lord Commissar!” Shinji noticed one of the regimental Commissars by the flowerpot. He was orderly except for one thing, he was apt to pick up his figurines and absent-mindedly place them back down one he has finished a ‘conversation’. That was the likely reason they were always all over the place. “Thanks. That really cheered me up.”  
  
_‘Yes… sure…’_ ground out the Thousand Son over at the shelf. _‘Gang up on me. I have NOTHING to do with his thoughts, though I follow the Gods of Chaos, even I find such whining disgusting. Why do you think we send so many cultists out as meat shields? We will not suffer even such emos in OUR presence.’_  
  
He was still confused, however. He was almost half-asleep when he heard a commanding female voice say _‘To look too far into the future leads to madness. To Hope is to be Disappointed. If you must plan, Shinji, then you must define your goal and choose the paths that will lead to it. Choose the best future nearest, and see only that future. Do the steps that will lead you to that. Then the next simple outcome. And the next. Only then will you find that which you seek.’_  
  
He turned and saw a skirted figure near his head. “What do you mean, Farseer-sensei?”  
  
The other figurines made outraged noises at that suffix of respect, and various warnings about never trusting an Eldar. Chaos, self-cognizant as evil and misleading, was even the loudest at it. But Shinji could almost feel her potent heat of her pride. His eyelids were heavy, and through his wavering vision he could almost certainly see her turning her head and lowering her arm from its salute with a sword. The Eldar placed her hands to her hips as Shinji began to cross that boundary between sleep and wakefulness.  
  
_‘Time is planning, Shinji. Many believe that the future is what you make of it. You mon-keigh are determined to force fate to your whims.’_ She radiated amusement. _‘Only we Eldar see that the future is already set. The future only calls for events to be altered to suit itself. It is the present that is malleable, never the future. Do you want me to teach you?’_  
  
_‘Eldar witch!’_ the Space Marine spat. _‘I will not have him as your pawn!’_ The others made similar statements.  
  
_‘Silence! He is not your Emperor’s! Not yet! I will not have his blood spilled just like any other meaningless fighter in a meaningless Waaagh! I will not have his beautiful soul consumed in Chaos! I WILL GIVE HIM WHAT NONE OF YOU CAN GIVE HIM!’_ She turned to him and spoke softly. His eyes already shut, Shinji could pretend freely he felt the barest of pressure on his nose, like a tiny hand pressed upon it.  
  
_‘I will give him a Choice. He will know just why it is he so willingly walks into Hell.’ said the Farseer. ‘I will give you a mind forever voyaging, Shinji. Will you accept me as your teacher?’_  
  
“S-sure, Farseer-sensei…” the boy mumbled in his sleep.

 

  
=][=

  
_The Farseer stood over him, her cloak billowing in the breeze. The world was mist, dense, endless. She stood tall and proud, her armor the fruit of thousands of years of expertise. Her facemask looked even more severe, more disapproving than a Space Marine’s. That only made them look Angry, All The Time. The Eldar’s pointed chin and frown made him feel his insignificant years._  
  
_Maybe it was a bad idea. He knew full well he was dreaming, and even there he felt in complete lack of control. What was a boy to an Eldar, a person thousands of years old, even if it was one he imagined into being?_  
  
_The Farseer reached into the back of her helmet, and unlatched it. Unseen seams came apart with a hiss. She pulled up a bit, and removed her helmet to the front. As her face revealed itself, with one last flick away from its darkly discouraging mask, Shinji felt his heart stop._  
  
_There were illustrations, but they simply did not do her person any justice. She was an Eldar, pointy-eared and arrogant in the supposed perfection of her Race. Three thin red lines were marking the sides of her face, from eyes to chin, as if she had been crying blood. Her lips were as red, as if she’d been drinking blood. Her skin was smooth and seemingly glowing with an inner light, such was its silken fineness._  
  
_It was there Shinji recognized why he found Minase attractive. Her delicate, regal features was the closest to living Eldar he had ever seen._  
  
_The Farseer smiled. It was an unnaturally beautiful, frighteningly serene smile. “Shinji…” she said, her lips barely moving. “Clear your mind.”_  
  
_“…what?”_  
  
_“The mind is full of noise, going hither and thither. The mind is a spoiled child. It is without order, without structure. The mind is a journey. Is it freedom to just let the wind and waves take you? To let yourself drift wherever it might take you on its whim? Is to take the helm taking away from that freedom? Freedom, is choice. This has always been the gift of the Eldar. To be able to decide where and when you want to go. To take that future, and only that future you want. You must clear your mind, if we are to begin.”_  
  
_She sat cross-legged on the imaginary ground, a wind helpfully setting her cloak out of the way as she sat. It was a standard meditative seat. “Shinji, please sit.”_  
  
_The boy nodded and complied. He looked at her for a while, so deathly still, so artistically perfect. A comparison to a spider would have been easy, as she was wearing black and bone-white. Shinji could not compare her to any creature, she was just as moonlight to him. Cold, but at the same time elegant light, hiding flaws, enhancing grace, holding secrets._  
  
_She opened her left eye and slightly quirked her lips._  
  
_Shinji turned red and quickly shut his eyes. “Clear the mind… clear the mind…” he muttered. She was right! It IS full of noise. Everything it seemed passed through the forefront of his thoughts. It didn’t help that he had completely memorized all the codices, every angle he could view the miniatures, the sketches, the novels. Everything there, and constantly churned over in his mind, was what made him capable of recreating the personalities of fictional beings so thoroughly._  
  
_He began to frown. He began to sweat._  
  
_“Aaah! This is harder than it looks!” he had to say. It’s unfair that the Eldar could do it so easily. Eldar seemed always at peace with themselves, without the internal struggle of the mon-keigh. It was a point of irritation that the closest thing to it was the simple crude mind, never without any insecurities, of an Ork._  
  
_“I would have been surprised if you succeeded in your first try, Shinji.” She lifted her right hand and held it palm down in front of her. She then had moved it about in gentle, swaying motions. “The mind is like a butterfly. You can see it resting on a flower, but it leaves. It goes where it will. But it comes back to that flower again._  
  
_It is perfectly all right to let the mind wander. As long as it returns. Then, the mind may be taught to remain. All life, is suffering, Shinji. All suffering, is in the mind. Only in the mind can one become free. Take your time, Shinji. Time is meaningless here. We can take as long as what proves necessary.”_  
  
_“Won’t I just forget when I wake up?” He began to think of a butterfly. Come on butterfly, don’t move. Don’t move. Ah! No… bad butterfly! “This is a dream, right?”_  
  
_“It is a dream, true. But a mind in control does NOT lose control. To wake is not to disappear. To wake, is simply to BE, to exert even greater awareness of the mind, as connected to body.”_  
  
_Eventually, Shinji realized that forcing the butterfly to remain still actually encouraged it to fly away. The butterfly, if left alone, will choose to return to the flower. It would flitter away, then return. Away and back again. By ignoring it, Shinji knew that he actually found the stillness he was looking for. Motion in stillness. Stillness in motion._  
  
_Time was indeed meaningless. It could have been minutes, or hours, or hundreds of years before he came to that conclusion. Eons more as he learned to be satisfied with it. That damn butterfly’s never going to just stop at the flower. To fly IS the natural state of the butterfly. The flower’s natural state IS to provide a place for a butterfly to rest._  
  
_“You’re teaching me patience, aren’t you?” he said after some time. “A clear mind doesn’t equal an empty mind. Only that it knows.”_  
  
_“Very good, Shinji. We Eldar meditate to bring out knowledge that we have always known. You have always known this.” She stroked at his mind and had him open his eyes. “Now, come sit with me, and we shall learn how to apply it.”_  
  
_Shinji scooted closer and prepared to enter a meditative state again. The Farseer stopped him. “No, I said sit with me.”_  
  
_“Um, so, closer then? Should I sit to the left or right?”_  
  
_The Farseer patted her crossed shins, and motioned the boy to sit on her lap. Shinji just knew his face was flaming, but the Eldar still had her eyes closed and seemed unconcerned. Reminding himself that it was all just in the imagination, he complied._  
  
_She laid her chin right over his head, her long black hair flowing like dark rain to either side of him. She grabbed his hands under her gloves and crossed them over his chest in much the same way Pharaohs would have rested. Needless to say, Shinji had a vastly more difficult time at achieving meditative serenity._  
  
_“The future… to reach for it, one must first define your goals. What do you want, Shinji?”_  
  
_“Want…? I want Minase to like me!”_  
  
_The Farseer hmm’ed. He could feel the vibrations passing through the chestplate and into his back, going deep and prickling into his spine. “Vague.” she said. “That is not a goal, not even an idea. A future must be specific for it to happen.”_  
  
_He closed his eyes again and reached for that timeless calm. “Specific, huh? I want Minase to SAY she likes me.”_  
  
_“Like you? In what way? Or for what?”_  
  
_“Um, just LIKES me, I guess. I want her to say someday, Shinji I like you…” Wait. He could feel himself drifting. The was muddying the vision. “No… I want her to like my music. She can like me later.”_  
  
_And then, it suddenly came all tumbling into his brain. It was all so obvious, in retrospect. He gasped._  
  
_A myriad of possible futures, given what he already know of his classmates, his teachers, his classroom, and what they might be doing. What he had imagined, was hope. It was wish. What the Eldar had were a burden. The future was no mere fantasy. It was a series of specific events happening at specific points in time made by specific people. There is no ‘might be’. There was only ‘will be’ or ‘will not be’. An event once past cannot be undone. It only reduces it further, the choices available to it, closer and closer to one eventuality._  
  
_He can’t predict Minase’s movements or her opinions. He can mold events however, to arrive at a specific scenario at a specific time. But to lock on to that ideal would be to ensure it would never happen._  
  
_It was an odd paradox._  
  
_But there was a way out…_  
  
_“What future do you reach for, young Human?”_  
  
_“I reach for no future, ancient Eldar. I see it, and it will come to me.”_  
  
_The Farseer kissed the top of his head. “And thus you have taken the first step in a winding road once traveled by the Eldar.”_

 

=][=

 

 

 

 

=][=

  
The Eldar – what others may refer to as _the space elves_ , with all the smug self-righteousness that implied – also had much to be smug about. A psychic and long-lived race, they wielded the powers of the Warp in way that was safe and refined, woven into their technology, while other lesser creatures risked their heads exploding or being eaten by daemons. They were sixty million years old, and their Eldar Pantheon fought the Star Gods and their Necron servants in the War in Heaven, and as both the Old Ones died off and the Krork devolved into brutal violence (becoming the Orks), they remained and they flourished. They claimed and expanded the Webway and became truly the undisputed masters of the galaxy.  
  
The Imperium of Man could only dream of ever matching the glory of the ancient Eldar Empire, who captured suns in artificial dimensions for warmth, and made infinite skies out of the skein between the Materium and the Immaterium.  
  
The Eldar – what others may refer to as _the space elves_ , with all the smug self-righteousness that implied – also had much to be smug about. A psychic and long-lived race, they wielded the powers of the Warp in way that was safe and refined, woven into their technology, while other lesser creatures risked their heads exploding or being eaten by daemons. They were sixty million years old, and their Eldar Pantheon fought the Star Gods and their Necron servants in the War in Heaven, and as both the Old Ones died off and the Krork devolved into brutal violence (becoming the Orks), they remained and they flourished. They claimed and expanded the Webway and became truly the undisputed masters of the galaxy.  
  
The Imperium of Man could only dream of ever matching the glory of the ancient Eldar Empire, who captured suns in artificial dimensions for warmth, and made infinite skies out of the skein between the Materium and the Immaterium.  
  
The Imperium of Man could also only look to the Eldar as an object lesson of mislaid power, they whose hedonism birthed the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Excess; tearing open a rent into the fabric of reality in the heart of their Empire; becoming the vast roiling expanse known as the Eye of Terror. All Eldar on their deaths, no matter how far from the Fall they’ve been born, all their souls would be claimed by Slaanesh to be raped and tortured forevermore.  
  
The Eldar knew much about the secrets of the universe, but in the end they lost knowledge of themselves and empathy with all the other beings around them. Only the few, the Craftworld Eldar, survived the Fall by fleeing the very pleasures and intensities of their civilization.  
  
And the Dark Eldar, who lived in the irrational scream-filled city of Commoragh, built within the Webway itself, warmed by captured suns. They who never stopped in their debauchery and malice, surviving by raiding and enslaving and bartering a few more centuries of existence by sending delectable _other_ souls to Slaanesh.  
  
The Eldar Farseer would not brook a similar fate born of ignorance and mere fleshy cravings to fall upon her charge.

 

 

=][=

  
Thus Shinji taught himself how to plan ahead. He drew a line in the sand and took a leaf. He held it above the line and felt the Farseer ask. _‘Now, which way will it fall? The right or the left?’_  
  
“Left.” he decided.  
  
He let go of the leaf. It drifted slowly down, twisting over in mid-air now and then. It landed to the left.  
  
No way! He had really, really focused on-  
  
‘ _Do not hope, Shinji. The future is not built on hope._ ’ she admonished soundly. ‘ _An object does not move through time. It is time that flows around an object. The leaf, the wind, even you, and here only you can make the choice and only you can create the future that you desire_.’  
  
Shinji picked up the leaf and held it up again, this time much closer to the ground over the left side. “It will fall to the left.” And so it did.  
  
_‘What have you done, Shinji?’_  
  
“I saw the future I wanted, and knew the steps that would have it happen. This was the simplest I saw.”  
  
_‘Well done. May your sight serve you well in the days ahead.’_

 

 

=][=

  
People, because they made choices, were simpler to predict. It is unknown when Gendo himself learned this, but Shinji for all intents and purposes, taught this realization to himself. Information was needed to craft a scenario, for the future was a series of steps, each of which built upon each other, reinforcing each other, until finally there was no choice but to arrive at that outcome.  
  
Empathy was needed, no matter how well you may want someone else to move according to your own design. Someone who cannot put himself in the feet of the opposing force has nothing but a blunt instrument by which to challenge the world. He must feel in the way that someone sitting opposite him would feel while speaking to him, and untangle the reasons behind their refusal.  
  
It was like the most basic skill of leadership – never give a command you know will not be followed.  
  
Many people get into arguments simply to feel good about themselves, not for good purpose. As much as one should not underestimate the opposing force, one should not also believe that they can be swayed only by a strong argument. That was not empathy, for people were far more likely to be moved by emotions than logic.  
  
_“For this reason the ying-yang symbol is unprecentedly beautiful, a sliver of understanding somehow fallen into human hands. Young king, know this, harmony is more of a truth than an ideal – but the truth can also be broken.”_  
  
To be favored by fate, hope was not enough. To understand oneself was the first step to understanding others, and to understand others was the first step to truly unlocking one’s own potential.  
  
_“It is perfectly fine to think every other human other than you is just an idiot. It is the sad fate of the homo sapiens barely sapiens. Simply do not let them know about it and take advantage accordingly.”_  
  
_“Xeeeno! What sort of pointy-eared nonsense advice are you giving our Commander, xeno?!”_ someone yelled from a distance.  
  
Shinji visualized a future in which his teacher would arrive and say “Sorry class, I… overslept.”

 

 

  
=][=

  
It was just a day after getting his cello. He did so by simply asking his teacher “Hisoka-sensei, why don’t we just move some companies to China? They’ve got plenty of space over there that they don’t need, and we… we don’t have enough people anymore.”  
  
Sango Hisoka was a man who taught by rote, but at least a well-practiced instruction. He was a man who knew his place in the world, never anyone particularly noteworthy, but he also knew enough of the world and its pains. He was still a fairly young teacher, and as such was shaped by the days after Second Impact. He was of the generation that felt their future was stolen from their grasp.  
  
He looked too tired for his years. He felt lucky enough to have his comfortable, if undemanding and unexciting government job. Teaching had never really been his passion, but he recognized he was passably good at it.  
  
The answer leapt into his mind, and was discarded with a second and contrary thought. “Um… shouldn’t you be asking that to your Social Studies teacher?” he said, trying to buy himself time to make a decision.  
  
Shinji dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry, I just had to ask someone…” He backed away and ran out of the classroom before his English teacher could say anything more.

=][=

  
  
And because he couldn’t say anything so Shinji, had to say it to himself. It got stuck in his mind as he went home. The boy watched him go. Shinji knew that Hisoka-sensei lived in a small old home with a multi-generational family.  
  
And the boy just knew with unnatural certainty that he would blurt it out to his wife, as he mulled things over on the way home. And also somehow he just knew, that Hisoka-sensei’s wife would bring it up over the dinner table.  
  
And he could see, though the faces were blurry, Hisoka-sensei’s brother saying how stupid it would be, _hadn’t they learned from history?_ His father would just shout out to _just_ _shoot the bastards._  
  
All that land, and they wasted it, most of their population died of starvation, not the rising seas. The Chinese resolved it by force of arms, as usual, and once more the PLA was flexing their muscles in the Orient. In response, so did Japan try to build up its naval and missile capacities, and the old man who felt it was completely justified in self-defense did not realize how that also made other surrounding nations nervous.  
  
The Chinese look to their own interests first above all, they need nor expect loyalty and tribute from other nations. That was only _sane_ ; Hisoka’s brother would retort. The Chinese still have nukes; the best thing to do would be not to poke the dragon. Not while they were at the height of their power and as the United States' interest wanes in the Far East.  
  
_“Who was it that detonated a nuke in the heart of Tokyo? That is still a mystery!”_ This the old man would yell back. _"We must be strong again! We must draw a line and let them rightfully fear what it means to cross it! That is strength of nations!"_  
  
_"The strength of nations is the welfare of its people!"_ would be the retort. _"Pride has never been a good reason to throw away lives and wealth!"_  
  
And Hisoka-sensei would have sat there, as his stronger-willed family got to shouting and debating. Each time he opened his mouth to speak, his father or his brother would say something scathing to each other. His wife would just pat at his hand and give him a look that said _‘yours is the only word that I trust’._  
  
He would kiss her that night, but try as he might, he would not be able to go to sleep or concentrate on much anything else.

 

 

=][=

  
The next day, he did arrive late, his clothes crumpled with hurry. His eyes were bloodshot and weary. “Sorry, class…” he started to say. “You overslept, Hisoka-sensei?” Shinji said suddenly. “It’s okay.”  
  
The teacher laughed weakly. “Yeah, sorry class. I overslept. People do that from time to time.”  
  
The children nodded, forgiving him instantly. They never wanted to get up early either. Until then, they just assumed adults did so because they wanted to, but even they were human. They paid a little bit more attention in class that day.  
  
Shinji caught him again by the end of the day. He felt guilty and just had to give him back his nights.  
  
“Oh, hello, Shinji, about what you said…”  
  
“I’m sorry to be bother, sensei. But I just thought, we don’t NEED to go to China after all. We can use their land without taking it from them or trying to make them trade when they don’t want to. That’s selfish and bad. Can’t we ask for help somewhere else?”  
  
The teacher’s eyes widened. “Yes… that’s what I thought too. We can just lease it from them. They provide the land, we provide the seedlings, the technology and the expertise. Yes, but the history between us is just too deep. But that approach to America or Australia, now that’s different! It might be farther away, but they actually have the military power to protect their convoys. Australia is still the world’s best source of titanium, and the southern coasts were completely scoured by Impact. They do not have the population, but the nations above them do! There would be less deliberate deal-breaking or lapses in piracy protection in something that isn’t a… co-prosperity sphere, merely a new north-south sea lane.” He stared down at the little boy. “That was surprisingly deep of you, Shinji.”  
  
“Um… sensei? You said all that stuff.”  
  
“Uh. Right. I guess I did.” He began to laugh again, at seeing his own ridiculous attention to the question… these were the things we wanted to say, but could never really challenge his own smarts against the argumentative spite of his family. “But such thoughts you have. You should apply yourself more to schoolwork, Shinji. You’re wasting your potential.”  
  
“T-thank you, sensei. I better be going now…”  
  
The next day, Hisoka-sensei showed up early, smiling and well-rested.

 

  
=][=

  
Shinji had the better part of two months to be at ease, if not proficient, with cello to make the band. The cello was a good instrument for children to learn, since it didn’t need them to carry any weight. He could practice for hours with a single-minded laser-focus. It was certain he could still improve, as the whole point of the club was to offer additional instruction, but he didn’t want his first appearance there to show him useless.  
  
The first part was not to be ignored.  
  
He didn’t care about being noticed. He didn’t care about the common interests. First, he must elevate the level of attention. There was nothing about him known, no true opinions formed. Only through his presenting what was expected could he reliably guess at anyone’s reaction towards him.  
  
He knew this from his guardians. Were he to become suddenly willful and wild, they would be at a loss on how to react, and most likely choose negatively. In a long stretch of consistent action, though, his simple demands appeared reasonable. In such context he found ways of making sure they could never say no.  
  
For instance, just staying up until midnight. Any normal boy had to have a curfew for school. Shinji had always woken up early, being easy to rouse. Now he did so on his own. He practiced his cello at night, and always stopped on his own. Every day it was a few minutes later. Then, he just stopped playing at night, just when he was getting better at it. In their questioning next morning, he said that there was no way he could get any better given his limited time. Night was no good. He didn’t want to be any bother.  
  
“But Shinji, we’re not bothered.” He could synch his lips with what his uncle was saying. “It’s all right to play as you need.”  
  
“Yes, you gave your word to me, remember?” his aunt added impishly.  
  
“I’m sorry…” he said.  
  
She responded to that as well as he’d hoped. “Well on weekends you can stay up as long as you like! You wanted this, and you should finish it!”  
  
“I’ll make you proud.” he said just then.  
  
He managed to barter to almost midnight for weekdays. It went as he had foreseen, barring several changes in phrases and wording. It was a Scenario playing out in his face. It astonished him. It humbled him. He had no power there, he was merely a bit player in the affair, and the results being to his benefit mattered little. His guardians jumped into the scenario of their own volitions, their own logics. He could see other paths, but they never took them. They were false because his plan was too expansive yet, too much being taken in. Emotions AND actions AND events had to be taken into consideration. No, the future should happen at the tips of his fingers, and he should never have had to fear or get excited by it.  
  
As long as the _Why_ escaped him his vision was imperfect.  
  
The goal was not to make them proud. It would be a side-effect, to having achieved proficiency in the instrument. The short-term goal was to gain more time to train his physical movements, to have his muscle memory do all the work, it was the entire point of learning from sheet music.  
  
There was a reason the Eldar called their craft the MUSIC of creation. Music was orderly, notes following notes, motions following motion. Every note was exactly the same as all other notes before it. All the motions to produce these notes too had to be exactly the same. It was the hardest part in learning to play, finding muscular and mental consistency.  
  
Shinji’s music teacher remarked that he was astonishingly good. To the boy the simple strains were nothing special. It was unlikely the school would demand anything that much more complicated. It was easy, because of his memory. There was a finite series of movements possible in the cello, and a finite series of perfect sounds. He knew what motions produced those perfect sounds.  
  
The practicing never stopped. Even in his dreams, he wove his skills.  
  
He was not fooled by the presence of a ‘song’ or a ‘piece’ in the exercise. What mattered was each note. The whole could carry itself. Each note had in his mind the corresponding perfect sound. He no longer needed to hear his cello to know when he was playing correctly. He could practice at any time, at any place, just endlessly repeating those chains of motions, immune to the touch of boredom. School was tedious, with all the lectures and note-copying. Music, with its predictable end, was engrossing in how it kept the illusion of change. Once done perfectly, he had to do it again, for perfection was in itself beauty and worthy of being experienced again and again.  
  
Music was perfect like nothing else could be, except mathematics, of which music was likewise an expression of its universality.  
  
The future he saw was not of being incredibly good in music in such a short time, but it happened anyway. The greatest barrier to the learning of music was the irritation in forgetting the parts, in sour notes, in the sheer repetitive nature of practice. To Shinji, expecting perfection so soon was unwise. Perfection built upon smaller things. His music teacher gave him more and more complex pieces, as he showed a hunger for the classicals. Where in a different time the boy may have played to forget, here he played to remember.  
  
He had no fear the day he showed up for audition. Everything unexpected comforted him in the knowing that the future was growing closer and closer to one inescapable end.  
  
He did not believe his teacher’s praises. He was no genius. What he did was merely the wraithsong of crafters long since passed away. He merely followed their instructions, shaped by the music as much as he shaped it. Ego was the second most crippling barrier to the pursuit of music.

 

 

=][=

  
  
The junior high's band supervisor was an old, thin man named Masayuki Asano. He seemed in obvious pain just from the over-enthusiastic thrashings of a trumpet-playing boy. He was trying for something that had some resemblance to jazz filtered through a shonen anime on on a cloudy night.  
  
“This is not that type of band, Asagiri-kun.” the old man sighed. “If there is place for you in this band, we will let you know.”

 

 

=][=

  
“This is not that type of band, Asagiri-kun.” the old man sighed. “If there is place for you in this band, we will let you know.”  
  
“Um. So you’re here too, Ikari?”  
  
Shinji turned to see a mousy-looking girl with an unflattering pageboy haircut standing near him. He nodded, and furrowed his brows a fraction at seeing a cello in her hands. “You’re… Mitsugane Ayane.” he said.  
  
“You know me?” she asked, her eyes widening.  
  
“You’re Houko Minase’s friend.” He briefly glanced towards the other girl, who sat nearby looking bored. She had to be there though, as the nominal leader of the band.  
  
Ayane’s expression fell into guarded neutrality. “Oh. Her. Yes, I am her friend.”  
  
“It’s good to have friends sharing your hobbies.” he put in with a slight smile. “I wasn’t aware there was already someone at the cello, though.”  
  
The girl looked down at her instrument, and embarrassedly made as if to hide it behind her back. “No, no. I’m just trying out too. This is my first time playing with Mina-chan.”  
  
“How long have you been playing?”  
  
“A… year or so now. I only transferred here from Nerima-2, you know. Or maybe you don’t know…” she let her bangs fall over her eyes. “I played at for the school there, too.”  
  
Actually, he did know. He just could not say so without revealing he’d been going around all ninja stealth Ranger on Minase and all the people she knew, gathering information. At least he wasn’t at the peeping, telescoping sight stage yet. Privacy was not something the Eldar valued or respected. Every bit of his time was occupied; this Shinji had little to be bored or despondent about. He felt absolutely wired, as his plans all became tangled into one unfolding scenario.  
  
How had he missed this? He supposed it was simply because he had never heard her practicing. An unexpected hitch to his plans, but then that was the part that delineates a mere Seer from a Farseer.  
  
He went into music for friendship and friendship he shall have. He smiled. “I’d love to hear you play.”  
  
“Next!” shouted Asano, looking forward to someone recommended by the talented young ‘princess’ of the school.  
  
“Please, go ahead.” Shinji stepped aside.  
  
“B-but.” She made a slight grimace.  
  
He felt a stirring of what should have been. He allowed the Farseer in pocket to guide his voice. “Music is music, and must be loved where it is found. In sincere hearts and loving hands, it cannot be anything but perfection. You’ll be fine.”  
  
She turned away quickly, and walked over to the front of the room. She faced the teacher, keeping her back to Shinji, and played. The boy closed his eyes. She was good, her practice showed. Her music was fast and lively, and without hesitation. It was perhaps a little rushed in places, but it didn’t take away from its spirit. In the tilt of her shoulders he could see she felt it, drew out the music from her soul. She tried so hard, put all her heart into it.  
  
Asano-sensei merely nodded, and now bade the other cello-holder to the makeshift stage.  
  
He stood there, said “My name is Ikari Shinji, and I play the cello.” He closed his eyes and called the perfect notes from the warp of his memory.  
  
He played a simple tune, there at the audition. He showed no expression, no artistic changes of expressions, no impressive flourishes. He closed his mind and let time cease. He just let it flow. Even his hearing closed off, even his tendons did their motions all unknowing. Music should be played with passion, imparted with the soul of the performer, but he had no idea what emotion, if any, he was pouring into the piece.  
  
He didn’t even know _what_ he played or how long he played it. Asano-sensei’s face remained impassive, Minase’s almost frowning. Ayane, through her glasses, could only stare at him in mute disbelief.  
  
_‘Ookay. Farseer-sensei? What in the Warp just happened to my plans? What just happened?’_  
  
“Hm… I don’t know.” The music teacher turned to the pupil he considered his prodigy. “Minase, what do you think?”  
  
The girl shrugged, and flicked aside her long black hair. Her face was still in that pretty, slightly haughty set. “Well, I think I like it.”  
  
Asano-sensei nodded and turned back to the boy. “All right, Shinji. You want in? You’re in. We’ll keep Mitsugane as a backup.” He stood up from where he was sitting on a desk and gathered the folders there. He tucked his papers under his arms. “You two report here next practice. Houko, tell them the schedules.” He yawned, made his way out the door, and left them to finish and clean up the room.  
  
“Don’t mind him” said Minase. “He acts strict, but really not. Practice is every day at five-thirty, even on Saturdays and Sundays.” She stood up and stretched out, her starched white uniform pulling interestingly. “Well, I got things to do. Coming, Acchan?”  
  
Ayane blinked and looked from her to him. “Um…” Fortunately the sunlight had a reflective glare off her glasses. Shinji nodded slightly, as if thanking her. “Um, sure!” She hurried to pack her cello and was actually the first out the door.”  
  
Shinji was left there, alone in the music room. “What just happened?” he wondered again.  
  
The problem of Uncertainty as applied to time was that one can never truly know Time, as the fourth dimension, had the special properties of relativity. What something is doing in time or where it is going, but not both. If it seems so clear and apparent, then both parts of the vision are flawed. As he reached the cusp of his scenario, his awareness and control over it vanished utterly even as it reached the conclusion he had wanted. It was this that made Far-Seeing an Art, rather than a Science.  
  
“ _Perfection_ …” he felt an ancient voice whisper. “ _A future perfectly arrived at. There are no grand plans, no fortune-telling, the favor of the gods is something that is beyond mere chance. There is only the what is, blending into the now. Such is the music of the Eldar._ ”  
  
“My music is the pillar upon which whole worlds have been built…” he whispered back. He understood at last. The inner and outer worlds were linked by a common thread.  
  
Hmm… if he was going to play the cello so often, he thought about getting some white gloves. Perhaps also some orange-tinted sunglasses, if he was going to keep standing out in the dramatic sunset like this.  
  
Shinji shook his head. Nah, that would look ridiculous. It was so poseur. Who wears stuff like that?  
  
And now for some mysterious reason the Farseer was cackling madly.

=][=

 


	3. Interlude - Da Little Book of Waaagh

* * *

  **INTERLUDE: DA LITTLE BOOK OF WAAAGH!**

  
  


=][=

  
The problem, Shinji supposed, was not that his friends were dumb. It was that they _kept doing dumb things_. They were children, and they lived fast, and demanded everything should happen instantly, and didn’t know how to pick their battles.  
  
Shinji had a multitude of voices inside his skull, and continually forced himself to reflect on his desires and the consequences of every decision. As such, he could not really expect anyone to live the same way he did, enjoying chores for their own sake. He ran and jumped and made push-ups and pull-ups to feel the burn, because to endure pain and overcome adversity was how mankind proved its right to exist. Pretend Imperial Guard training regimen was a go!  
  
If they could have his same dedication, they would find that in doing more, they have more free time to do as they wished. It was still unrealistic to expect other happy children to live like a _laser_.  
  
It was 2010, and there was not really an Internet as much as a non-Impact world considered normal. Many households did not own a computer, considering it a needless luxury. If one had to look up information about biology, philosophy, literature, and such, the best place to look for it was still the library and its networked computers. The boyz relied on one trusted resource, who had to take the hassle of looking things up and phrasing the results into a way they would accept.  
  
“Do it because I sayz so” was not something other children would just so easily take from another smaller kid, after all.  
  
Shinji originally conceived of a pamphlet quickly explaining and reminding his friends of the common “Why Should I?” questions. “ _Why go to school, why go to sleep early, why do the dishes, why I shouldn’t mouth off to my parents, why I shouldn’t take my little brother/sister’s stuff?_ ”, and etc. were all essential to telling the boyz to take the battles they can _win_.  
  
Orks are made for fightan and winnin’ – they should really remember the last part more often.  
  
_“Jez krumpin’ wildboyz ent gunna do nuffin,”_ the Warboss explained. Even the orks understood that violence had to have a purpose, even if it was amusement. _“Ya gotta lets them know when they’re mukkin’ about en when dat’s just not acceptable, dat is._ ”  
  
So, Kobayakawa did not like to eat vegetables. Shinji didn’t like to eat vegetables all that much, but they weren’t exactly horrible to his tongue. It was an acquired taste… but he looked deeper. Vegetables were eaten for the nutrients. Adults liked vegetables. Maybe it’s because they needed a lot more of the nutrients, maybe people’s tastes change as they grow?  
  
Where Kobayaka asked Shinji “Why should I eat yucky vegetables?”, Shinji would ask his uncle “Why do you even like this _bitter leaf juice?”_  
  
If he were older, he could probably have compiled his findings into an essay or research paper to be rewarded with praise and high grades. Instead Shinji had to think deep about how to condense everything into two very common-sense sentences that his friends would accept.  
  
Nutrition and parental authority and having a tantrum on the table that will only lead to punishment and losing time for the things they enjoyed, and wotnot.  
  
**_1) Eat Yer Veggies_**

 

_Do it so youz can stop bein’ such a grot and get big enuff not to get pushed around._

  
**_2) Do Yer Chores_**

 

_Wot did you give for the food you eats and the roof over yer head? Wots dat? Nuttin? Den stop muckin’ about. Ask if yoz can get sumffin extra for doin’ yer chores kwik and gud, so yaz can get paid twice for doin’ a thing wunz. Dat’s wat kunnin’ is, dat is._

  
**_3) Go Ta Sleep_**

 

_Yu ain’t gonna be no giant robot until ya dreamz, ya git._

  
He reduced the pamphlet into three sections: Git Gud (self-improvement), Git Loot (negotiation), Git Loud (getting along with others). It was when he realized he was a hundred items in that he considered condensing it into a flowchart.  
  
And then he rolled up the cardboard paper used to make the flowchart into a tube.  
  
And he called his boyz together, raised the Learnin’ Stikk high, and (squeakily) roared “IZ YOU MUCKIN’ AAAAAABOUUUUT?!”


End file.
